Question

I’m trying to implement a flip animation to be used in board game like iPhone-application. The animation is supposed to look like a game piece that rotates and changes to the color of its back (kind of like an Reversi piece). I’ve managed to create an animation that flips the piece around its orthogonal axis, but when I try to flip it around a diagonal axis by changing the rotation around the z-axis the actual image also gets rotated (not surprisingly). Instead I would like to rotate the image “as is” around a diagonal axis.

I have tried to change layer.sublayerTransform but with no success.

Here is my current implementation. It works by doing a trick to resolve the issue of getting a mirrored image at the end of the animation. The solution is to not actually rotate the layer 180 degrees, instead it rotates it 90 degrees, changes image and then rotates it back.

Final version: Based on Lorenzos suggestion to create a discrete keyed animation and calculate the transformation matrix for each frame. This version instead tries to estimate number of “guiding” frames needed based on the layer size and then uses a linear keyed animation. This version rotates with a arbitrary angle so to rotate around diagonal line use a 45 degree angle.

Example usage:

[someclass flipLayer:layer image:image angle:M_PI/4]

Implementation:

- (void)animationDidStop:(CAAnimationGroup *)animation
                finished:(BOOL)finished {
  CALayer *layer = [animation valueForKey:@"layer"];

  if([[animation valueForKey:@"name"] isEqual:@"fadeAnimation"]) {
    /* code for another animation */
  } else if([[animation valueForKey:@"name"] isEqual:@"flipAnimation"]) {
    layer.contents = [animation valueForKey:@"image"];
  }

  [layer removeAllAnimations];
}

- (void)flipLayer:(CALayer *)layer
            image:(CGImageRef)image
            angle:(float)angle {
  const float duration = 0.5f;

  CAKeyframeAnimation *rotate = [CAKeyframeAnimation
                                 animationWithKeyPath:@"transform"];
  NSMutableArray *values = [[[NSMutableArray alloc] init] autorelease];
  NSMutableArray *times = [[[NSMutableArray alloc] init] autorelease];
  /* bigger layers need more "guiding" values */
  int frames = MAX(layer.bounds.size.width, layer.bounds.size.height) / 2;
  int i;
  for (i = 0; i < frames; i++) {
    /* create a scale value going from 1.0 to 0.1 to 1.0 */
    float scale = MAX(fabs((float)(frames-i*2)/(frames - 1)), 0.1);

    CGAffineTransform t1, t2, t3;
    t1 = CGAffineTransformMakeRotation(angle);
    t2 = CGAffineTransformScale(t1, scale, 1.0f);
    t3 = CGAffineTransformRotate(t2, -angle);
    CATransform3D trans = CATransform3DMakeAffineTransform(t3);

    [values addObject:[NSValue valueWithCATransform3D:trans]];
    [times addObject:[NSNumber numberWithFloat:(float)i/(frames - 1)]];
  }
  rotate.values = values;
  rotate.keyTimes = times;
  rotate.duration = duration;
  rotate.calculationMode = kCAAnimationLinear;

  CAKeyframeAnimation *replace = [CAKeyframeAnimation
                                  animationWithKeyPath:@"contents"];
  replace.duration = duration / 2;
  replace.beginTime = duration / 2;
  replace.values = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:(id)image, nil];
  replace.keyTimes = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:
                      [NSNumber numberWithDouble:0.0f], nil];
  replace.calculationMode = kCAAnimationDiscrete;

  CAAnimationGroup *group = [CAAnimationGroup animation];
  group.duration = duration;
  group.timingFunction = [CAMediaTimingFunction
                          functionWithName:kCAMediaTimingFunctionLinear];
  group.animations = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:rotate, replace, nil];
  group.delegate = self;
  group.removedOnCompletion = NO;
  group.fillMode = kCAFillModeForwards;
  [group setValue:@"flipAnimation" forKey:@"name"];
  [group setValue:layer forKey:@"layer"];
  [group setValue:(id)image forKey:@"image"];

  [layer addAnimation:group forKey:nil];
}

Original code:

+ (void)flipLayer:(CALayer *)layer
          toImage:(CGImageRef)image
        withAngle:(double)angle {
  const float duration = 0.5f;

  CAKeyframeAnimation *diag = [CAKeyframeAnimation
                               animationWithKeyPath:@"transform.rotation.z"];
  diag.duration = duration;
  diag.values = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:
                 [NSNumber numberWithDouble:angle],
                 [NSNumber numberWithDouble:0.0f],
                 nil];
  diag.keyTimes = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:
                   [NSNumber numberWithDouble:0.0f],
                   [NSNumber numberWithDouble:1.0f],
                   nil];
  diag.calculationMode = kCAAnimationDiscrete;

  CAKeyframeAnimation *flip = [CAKeyframeAnimation
                               animationWithKeyPath:@"transform.rotation.y"];
  flip.duration = duration;
  flip.values = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:
                 [NSNumber numberWithDouble:0.0f],
                 [NSNumber numberWithDouble:M_PI / 2],
                 [NSNumber numberWithDouble:0.0f],
                 nil];
  flip.keyTimes = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:
                   [NSNumber numberWithDouble:0.0f],
                   [NSNumber numberWithDouble:0.5f],
                   [NSNumber numberWithDouble:1.0f],
                   nil];
  flip.calculationMode = kCAAnimationLinear;

  CAKeyframeAnimation *replace = [CAKeyframeAnimation
                                  animationWithKeyPath:@"contents"];
  replace.duration = duration / 2;
  replace.beginTime = duration / 2;
  replace.values = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:(id)image, nil];
  replace.keyTimes = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:
                      [NSNumber numberWithDouble:0.0f], nil];
  replace.calculationMode = kCAAnimationDiscrete;

  CAAnimationGroup *group = [CAAnimationGroup animation];
  group.removedOnCompletion = NO;
  group.duration = duration;
  group.timingFunction = [CAMediaTimingFunction
                          functionWithName:kCAMediaTimingFunctionLinear];
  group.animations = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:diag, flip, replace, nil];
  group.fillMode = kCAFillModeForwards;

  [layer addAnimation:group forKey:nil];
}

Answer 1

you can fake it this way: create an affine transform that collapse the layer along it’s diagonal:

A-----B           B
|     |          /
|     |   ->   A&D
|     |        /
C-----D       C

change the image, and trasform the CALayer back in another animation.
This will create the illusion of the layer rotating around its diagonal.

the matrix for that should be if I remember math correctly:

0.5 0.5 0
0.5 0.5 0
0   0   1

Update:
ok, CA doen’t really likes to use degenerate transforms, but you can approximate it this way:

CGAffineTransform t1 = CGAffineTransformMakeRotation(M_PI/4.0f);
CGAffineTransform t2 = CGAffineTransformScale(t1, 0.001f, 1.0f);
CGAffineTransform t3 = CGAffineTransformRotate(t2,-M_PI/4.0f);  

in my tests on the simulator there still was a problem because the rotations happens faster than te translation so with a solid black square the effect was a bit weird. I suppose that if you have a centered sprite with transparent area around it the effect will be close to what expected. You can then tweak the value of the t3 matrix to see if you get a more appealing result.

after more research, it appears that one should animate it’s own transition via keyframes to obtaim the maximum control of the transition itself. say you were to display this animation in a second, you should make ten matrix to be shown at each tenth of a second withouot interpolation using kCAAnimationDiscrete; those matrix can be generated via the code below:

CGAffineTransform t1 = CGAffineTransformMakeRotation(M_PI/4.0f);
CGAffineTransform t2 = CGAffineTransformScale(t1, animationStepValue, 1.0f);
CGAffineTransform t3 = CGAffineTransformRotate(t2,-M_PI/4.0f);  

where animationStepValue for ech of the keyFrame is taken from this progression:

{1 0.7 0.5 0.3 0.1 0.3 0.5 0.7 1}

that is: you’re generating ten different transformation matrix (actually 9), pushing them as keyframes to be shown at each tenth of a second, and then using the “don’t interpolate” parameter. you can tweak the animation number for balancing smoothness and performance*

*sorry for possible errors, this last part was written without a spellchecker.